June 08, 2005
Your Dreams Were Your Ticket Out
How you been?
Me, I’ve been doing a portion of my web browsing on my iPod these days. The good people at iPodSoft have been responsible for that, thanks to their excellent iPod Agent.
iPod Agent will download an rss feed onto your iPod, where you can read it on the little screen. Not geeky enough for you? I got it telling me the weather, movie times, office passwords, and my rehearsal schedule. (Make with the clicky, more on that later). But back on the subject of my rss feeds…
Our friend Brendan is a lawyer, but we forgive him because he writes for CarbonGeek. Find out how robots will soon become our heartless overlords while discovering the latest in webgeekery. Impress the rest of the dorks at the back table!
You Are Dumb Dot Net is post-millenial judgement and retribution for the information age, according to its author, Bryan Lambert. Me, I just know You Are Dumb makes people on the subway give me a lot of space when they see me laughing at my iPod. Bryan takes the issues of the day and throws them through a blender of cynicism, sarcasm and left wing indignation. Most importantly, it’s funny. Geek references are also annotated for the novice.
Speaking of things that make me laugh at inanimate objects in public, there’s Overheard in New York. Way back when, me n’ my buddy Jeff used to carry little notebooks around and jot down things we heard on the street. A lot of those notes ended up in a play I wrote in college. Now someone’s gotten the idea of dedicating a website to all those weird and wonderful non-sequiturs you hear when tooling around this town.
I got that site from Mikey Dietsch, who wants me to run for mayor again. (I have no time, sorry Mikey). He has his own weblog, which is alternately fascinating and whimsical.
Mikey also told me about Dracula: The Weblog. The original Bram Stoker novel is written in the form of journal entries and letters composed by the main characters. Each letter or journal entry is dated. Someone got the idea of posting the novel in a blog, matching the chronology. The novel’s first chapter starts on May 3rd, so you can still catch up.
Matt Fraction came to New York and didn’t tell us. Fuck you, Fraction! And when’s the next mixtape phrenology?
Sciencegrrl and Dan Evans should update their sites more often. But I guess I’m not one to talk.
Hello again, everybody!
June 10, 2005
Wait wait wait... before I forget:
Tickets on sale. Me sing pretty.
July 2nd, 9:15pm, The Brick Theater. That’s where we’ll be performing songs from The Big Show.
It’s too early for me to be shitting my pants over this… although part of me feels I should, as I haven’t done a musical since college. (Shhh. Don’t tell anybody. They all think I’m a professional.) But the thing is, this can’t be any scarier than going up in front of audience with nothing but a ukulele and some snappy patter.
The other day we worked on the big power ballad we do at the end of the show. \m/, if I do say so myself.
June 21, 2005
MP3!
Now up on the Inverse Theater site are preview mp3's of Banger's Flopera. And just to save you the trouble of clicking:
Enjoy. Don't say I never gave you anything.
No, you can't hear me on any of these - but I'll be in two of those songs for the real show. And remember - July 2nd, Brick Theater, 9:15pm for the live song previews.
[EDIT: You can now find some photos on the site. And this week, we do some recording. So stay tuned.]
July 22, 2005
We're in Playbill!
Inverse Follows Up Fringe Hit Lost With New Banger's Flopera
Aaand, show dates:
Fringe Festival
VENUE NAME: The Village Theatre
ADDRESS: 158 Bleecker @ Thompson
SUBWAY: A, C, E, B, D, F, V to West 4th Street
SHOW TITLE
The Banger's Flopera - A Musical Perversion
SUN 8/14 @ 3:45pm
THUR 8/18 @ 2:00pm
SUN 8/21 @ 2:15pm
FRI 8/26 @ 9:45pm
SAT 8/27 @ 11:00pm
Those dates may change, so watch this space.
And I'm sorry about not updating for a while. I been busy.
It’s been taxing, working on the Big Musical. For one, I have found myself in the dance numbers.
Yes. I’m in dance numbers. It's all cheesy schlock muscial theatre 101 dance bits, but with dry humping and the occasional DP.
Those of you who have seen me dance know that I only dance for comedic effect. So this has been… challenging. I’ve also been very very grateful to Kelly, my dance partner, who's been endlessly patient and gracious despite her laryngitis and her feet getting stepped on.
(Hi, Kelly!)
We’ve had a few days of choreography rehearsals. I’m starting to look forward to that other scene where I play a rictus, open-eyed corpse for eight minutes. ‘Cause that’s easier.
Oh, and at the top of the week I played my ukulele bit for the first time in front of the entire cast and COMPLETELY FUCKED IT IN THE EAR. Three chords, and I FUCKED IT IN THE EAR.
I can play “The Summer Wind” goddamnit! I should be able to play THREE FUCKING CHORDS right.
Oh and that other song where we want you playing ukulele, Josh? You know, just one chord at the end there will do. And can you play a really off-key note in that middle part there, for comedic effect? Yeah, you can do that, right?
Razzin frazzin…
Anyway. Let’s just say my confidence level has dipped rather low. I’ve been cast here as the go-to-guy. I’m the guy who’s expected to step into any part in the chorus, any little role hanging around. I’m supposed to be, well… GOOD. And this week, I have not been good. And it doesn’t help that the actress who’s my female counterpart, the go-to-girl, can actually DANCE, has an incredible range and just goes over to the piano and plays songs from FUCKING CAROUSEL whenever the urge strikes while I’m sitting in the corner trying to play my THREE FUCKING CHORDS on the ukulele…
(Hi, Sarah!)
So tonight I was called in at eight-thirty and all my little demons of self-doubt have decided to come out and dance a merry little jig across my psyche. And OKAY. It was okay tonight. The song we had to learn was a call-back to a song I’d just learned yesterday so ba-da-bing, I’ve got it down in harmony while everyone else is still learning it.
OKAY. Maybe I won’t be fired.
Then rehearsal ends and Director Ben asks to have a word with a few actors. Including me.
Ah, shit.
Director Ben pulls us aside and says, “So you may know that we’re going to be assigning understudies for some of the roles in the cast…”
Oh, great, I’m thinking. Couldn’t they have decided this last week, before I started to suck?
“…Kelly, you'll be understudying Polly. Chris, you'll be understudying Peacock…”
DAMMIT! I wanted Peacock! He’s got great songs and tons of dick jokes. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT…
“…and Josh, you’ll be understudying all the other male roles except Mac the Knife.”
…oh, SHIT.
So I guess I’m doing better than I thought.
Still.
SHIT.
July 29, 2005
Me Love Cafe Press
I like Karen Flood. She let me pick out my own costumes:
The one on the left is by my friend Jill. You can go to Cafe Press and get Jilly's stuff for your very own.
The other one came from the Fluffy Bunnies of Doom store.
(Y'know, I'm mildly disappointed that the KNEEL BEFORE ZOD jersey got nixed...)
August 04, 2005
Who Wants A Free Ticket?
Cousin Matt sez:
Hello all,
I'm running this poster and flyer business during the New York Fringe festival, and one of my duties is too recruit a few people who would be willing to put up a bunch of Fringe posters around town in exchange for a super cool All Access Fringe Pass. It gets you into any Fringe show you want, for free, which is sweet.
If you or anyone you know would be interested in doing this please email or call me. The festival starts on the 12th so we need to get going on this asap.
Thanks,
-Matt
Leave me a comment if you want Cousin Matt's info. And here's my show dates at the Fringe again, just in case you missed 'em:
VENUE NAME: The Village Theatre
ADDRESS: 158 Bleecker @ Thompson
SUBWAY: A, C, E, B, D, F, V to West 4th Street
SHOW TITLE
The Banger's Flopera - A Musical Perversion
SUN 8/14 @ 3:45pm
THUR 8/18 @ 2:00pm
SUN 8/21 @ 2:15pm
FRI 8/26 @ 9:45pm
SAT 8/27 @ 11:00pm
August 14, 2005
Are my lemons tied, is my hair in place
And here we are.
In about 25 minutes, I have to leave this nice, climate controlled environment and hustle down to the theater for opening night.
Great day for it, isn't it?
According to the internet, it feels like 103 degrees outside. The earliest we can get to the theater (which is, thank god, A/C'ed up the wazoo) is 45 minutes before showtime. One of the actors offered up his place for early warm-ups and prep... but he's a 10-minute walk from the theater.
I'll hold off on the heat wave death-march, thanks.
Did I mention I have a cold? Oh yes.
I always get sick right around an opening. I got this cold two days ago. Normally, I'd just drug myself to the gills and ride it out that way... and that was my plan. But y'know something? Little hard to remember dance moves when you're all jacked up on DayQuil.
So it's Tylenol, Echinacea and Vitamin C for me today. Which is, of couse, SO NOT CUTTING IT.
I remember the first show I did in college... it was a reading for my first play, but we'd incorporated a lot of blocking. At the last minute, I had to give my script up to the tech booth and couldn't secure another copy for myself (oh yeah, I was in it too). I hadn't hit the stage in about three years before that show. And here I was, doing pick-up work on all these little parts that I couldn't get actors for, with no script....
My buddy Felix, who I went to high school with, was in that production. Thirty seconds before the show starts, we're backstage. Felix turn around and looks at me. I'm shaking in my boots. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "Just another day at the office."
Okay, then. Time to warm up a bit, then trudge through the heat to the theater.
Just another day at the office... just another day at the office...
August 19, 2005
FRONT PAGE, BABY!
"Offensive. Appalling. Dirty. Vulgar. Inappropriate. Obscene. The Banger's Flopera: A Musical Perversion embodies all those qualities and one more: brilliant. The brainchild of Inverse Theater Artistic Director Kirk Wood Bromley, with exhilarating music by John Gideon, The Banger's Flopera is playing at the Village Theatre as part of the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival. It is not to be missed. "
http://www.offoffonline.com/index.html
And while we're at it, take a peek at the rehearsal process:
http://www.laughstupid.com/bangers/index.htm